


You're Coming Back

by fyeahimking



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Anger, Crying, Fear, Jokes, M/M, Nightmares, PTSD, Sad, War, War AU, i never know what to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 02:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4649499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fyeahimking/pseuds/fyeahimking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jasper is being sent to war again and it's kind of killing him that Monty won't talk about the elephant in the room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're Coming Back

**Author's Note:**

> I kind of thought of 'what if I don't come back?' and went with it. They're like twenty three here, I want to say. To offer a little timeline: Jasper was recruited as soon as he turned eighteen and was discharged at twenty one because the panic attacks were getting the best of him. He was deemed well mentally a little over a year later and continued his normal life with Monty. Sometime after he turned twenty three he was called back, that's where this is set. 
> 
> I want to write more in this AU but at the moment I only have one idea for it. If you have any ideas for it and want me to finish it (or any requests or suggestions or whatever) please let me know in the comments below. 
> 
> No, I am **not** affiliated with the Army or the Military nor do I actually know if a panic disorder can get you discharged. I, personally, imagine that it could because panic attacks really fuck you up (and sometimes cause you to fuck other people up, so).

“What if I don't come back?” Jasper stared at Monty, trying to stop the tears from spilling. 

Monty pressed a kiss to Jasper's lips and with a smile said, “You're coming back.”

And that was the end of it.

Of course it wasn't but Monty hadn't known that at the time. 

 

This time he woke up to Jasper squirming in his sleep, making fitful noises. He scraped at his chest and when Monty saw that it was hard enough to leave red marks he moved to wake up his boyfriend. He pressed a light kiss to each of Jasper's cheeks then shook his shoulder gently. Jasper's eyes popped open, alert, and he grabbed Monty's wrists, flipping their positions and pinning him to the bed. 

“Normally I like to be undressed _before_ we get here.” Monty joked, trying to swallow the fear that had bubbled up into his throat. It was a little hard to breathe with Jasper's arm pressing heavily on his windpipe but he knew if he just waited a few seconds Jasper would figure it out and everything would be okay.

It took Jasper a moment but he looked around, his breathing slowing as he became aware of his surroundings and let Monty go, apologizing for his behavior. “I thought I was somewhere else,” he explained, sitting cross-legged in front of Monty. 

Monty, who had pulled himself into a sitting position, leaning against the headboard said, “It's okay, I understand.” It wasn't true, he didn't understand what it was like to be diagnosed with PTSD nor did he understand how it felt to have the war-zone flash before his eyes and his chest constrict in the belief that he was there. Monty reached out to run his hand through his boyfriend's hair, trying to relax him but Jasper's fear only grew and it was painted across his face. 

“What if I don't come back?” 

“You're coming back.” Monty said, as he usually did, and moved over to press light kisses to Jasper's neck. 

He thought it was the end of it this time as well. 

 

“That's gonna be us.” Monty said jokingly, pointing at the television screen when Jasper walked in. He'd found _Dear John_ on one of the channels that played movies all the time and had left it on while he waited for Jasper to come home.

Jasper stared at the screen for a moment before realizing what it was. “Have you ever seen this movie?” As far as he remembered the girl character married someone else in the end and he was pretty sure that wasn't what Monty wanted. (He hoped it wasn't anyway.)

Monty waved him over with a quiet but happy, “No. Come watch it with me.”

“Doesn't he die at the end?” Jasper sat down next to Monty, crossing his legs underneath him. Monty tried to smack him with a pillow but Jasper dodged it easily. “Guess that'd make sense.”

“You're coming home.” Monty said, reaching for Jasper.

“Maybe.” Jasper said noncommittally. 

“You're coming back,” Monty began. Jasper knew he was trying to soothe himself but he hated that they'd (mainly Monty) fallen into a routine of denying reality. Jasper did want to talk about it, however, his mind ran rampant with all the possibilities of all the different ways he could come back from the war-zone and the one way that he wouldn't. The problem was that Monty didn't. Every single time he'd ever tried to bring it up Monty said, _You're coming back_ , and most of the time Jasper really wasn't in the mood to start an argument (because he knew that was where they'd end up) especially with only a little time left until he shipped out. 

Today, however, he decided that it needed to happen. They needed to talk about this, they needed to argue and they needed to figure this out. There were only three days left until he was boarding the plane and was gone for two years. 

“But what if I don't?” Jasper said, sounding a little more high-strung but Monty didn't think much of it. 

He grabbed the remote and muted the sound on the television. “You're coming back,” he rubbed little circles into the back of Jasper's hand with his thumb, “I promise.”

“But,” Jasper started only to be cut off by Monty's repeated, “I promise.”

“But you can't promise that!” Jasper practically screeched, jumping off of the couch so he could pace around the living room. 

“What?” Monty asked softly, momentarily terrified of Jasper's speed and sudden (not really) anger.

“You can't promise that, Monty, you of all people cannot do that.”

“You're coming back, Jasper.” he pushed out, only now realizing that it may not be true.

“But what if I don't, Monty?” Jasper huffed, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “You don't seem to be understanding what's going on here. There is a chance, a very large chance,” he clarified, “that I will not be coming back. There is a very large chance that I will die and you don't seem to be listening to me when I say that. You can't promise I'll come back, Monty.” he dropped into the chair across the room, dropping his head in his hands, “Monty, you can't promise that,” he whispered, finally letting the tears out.

“I don't know what else I'm supposed to do.” Monty said quietly. 

“We need to talk about this. You can't keep denying it.” Jasper said. 

They both sat in silence for a few minutes. Jasper fiddled with the gold band on his finger, wondering if his mother and father had ever had this talk. Monty pulled his legs under himself, wishing Jasper would calm down and come sit beside him, curl into him and swear he'd come home. (It was all Monty had wanted, yeah, he'd been soothing himself by promising that Jasper would survive but it would be so much easier to believe if Jasper said it himself.)

But he had no such luck. 

“What happens if I die?” Jasper asked, twisting the ring nervously.

 

 

 

It turned out Jasper was right. 

It was raining the day they buried Jasper, less than four months after he'd shipped out. Octavia held Monty's hand the entire time. Monty didn't speak, didn't cry, only stared at the coffin, wondering how hard it would be to crawl in and suffocate under the ground with Jasper's body. But Jasper wasn't in there, he was blown to pieces on the other side of the planet and the only thing that had been recovered were his goggles. They sat in a box under Monty's bed and at night when he woke grabbing for Jasper but only finding cold sheets, he pulled them out and held them in his hands. 

He touched the melted plastic, ran his fingers through the dried drops of blood, gingerly ran the pad of his thumb over the shattered glass and when he finally looked into them and didn't find Jasper's bright eyes staring back, he realized he was alone.


End file.
